Kalamazoo home prices jump almost 12 percent in January

Katie Selden | Kalamazoo GazetteIn an encouraging sign for the Kalamazoo-area housing market, January's average home sale price was 11.7 percent higher than a year prior.

KALAMAZOO – If you have a For Sale sign sitting in your yard in the
Kalamazoo area, January brought some good news.

In another sign that the area's housing market may be starting to stabilize, residential home prices in January jumped 11.7 percent over the year before, the Greater Kalamazoo Association of
Realtors reported.

In January, the average sale price for a single family home
was $144,606 – the highest total for that month in more than five years. While the number of homes sold in the area has been increasing, year over year, since last July, home prices had continued to slide over the course of 2011.

Robin Pompey, chief executive officer of the Greater Kalamazoo Association of
Realtors, called the news "very encouraging" and described herself as "cautiously
optimistic" that the area's housing industry will begin to rebound in 2012. The
warmer-than-average weather may have helped spur sales, she said, along with low interest
rates.

But
one month does not make a trend, Pompey added.

While Kalamazoo-area homeowners have grown unaccustomed to
hearing good news about their domiciles, no matter how you crunch the data,
the January totals show improvement over this time last year. January marked
the seventh straight month that the number of home sales increased over the
previous year, with 191 units sold, up from 136 in January 2011. The total value of residential sales of single-family homes and condominiums
was $27.6 million – up $10 million from
January 2011's $17.6 million.

You have to go back five years – before the bubble burst in
the U.S. housing market -- to find better numbers. In January of 2007, the 233
residential sales totaled $33 million. But the average
sale price then was $141,900, still below this year's $144,606.

"This is good," Pompey said, "surprisingly so, to be honest."

Pompey said it remains to be seen if the price increases continue into February and beyond. Also, she pointed out, average sale price doesn't mean
that the good news is shared equally. Some sellers may very well still see
their homes go for rock-bottom prices.

"I feel for our members; I feel for homeowners," said
Pompey. "It's just been a long road. ... But I think Michigan is on the mend."

When asked about events that could disrupt the nascent
turnaround, Pompey said, "politics: It's an election year. That always affects
the market."

In a sign that February's figures may also prove upbeat, there were
100 more pending sales in January than in December: 311, up from 205.

"Certainly, some of those will fail – there will be
inspections that didn't go well, or buyers who couldn't work out financing,"
said Pompey. "But we've started to see those sold numbers go up. We've had seven
months of increased sales, year over year. That momentum is still going in the
right direction."